DOCSLIB.ORG

Approaching the Jazz Past: MOPDTK's Blue and Jason Moran's

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Approaching the Jazz Past: MOPDTK's Blue and Jason Moran's Journal of Jazz Studies vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 1-28 (2016) Approaching the Jazz Past: MOPDTK’s Blue and Jason Moran’s “In My Mind: Monk at Town Hall, 1959” Tracy McMullen “Polemical traditions seem to valorize the literal” -Henry Louis Gates In October 2014, the jazz group Mostly Other People Do the Killing released their seventh album, Blue, a “painstakingly realized, note-for-note” re- performance of the classic 1959 album by the Miles Davis Sextet, Kind of Blue. Some jazz critics have described this album as “ingenious and preposterous” and “important.”1 Many of my fellow jazz scholars have been intrigued, wondering just how closely these artists come to re-performing the nuances of Miles or Coltrane or Evans. I have been far less impressed or intrigued. MOPDTK’s album is the product of a long Western tradition of understanding the art object, the artist, and history. Far from preposterous, ingenious, or even new, I argue this album is a stark example of comprehending jazz via a Western epistemology that informs “classical music” rather than, as one reviewer argues, a critique of this tendency. Using the 1939 Jorge Luis Borges story the band offers as liner notes as my pivot point, I argue that MOPDTK assumes an epistemology that privileges objectivity and an obsession with naming while suspecting the subjec- tive and what cannot be named. In an obtuse reading of the Borges story, bassist and bandleader Moppa Elliott asserts that we must have a new object in order to re-read the old one. An obsession with naming (that is, locating boundaries) breeds a fascination with difference, which is then found in a predictable place: racial difference. The album typifies how a Western qua postmodern worldview (dis)misses lessons that can be found in the jazz tradition. 2 To offer an example 1 New York Times and Jazz Times critic Nate Chinen described the album as “ingenious and 2 I am speaking of a strong epistemological strand within the Western tradition to divide a subject from an object in order to know—to privilege the “objective” over the subjective—and a preoccupation with “naming” in order to delineate this from that. Important descriptions and critiques of this epistemology can be found in Anzaldúa 2010 [1987], Derrida 1997 [1967], Trinh 2011, 1989. Further, I argue that Borges’ “Pierre Menard” lampoons this epistemology. “Classical music” is not tantamount to the “Western tradition.” Music associated with this genre also may be influenced by a variety of epistemologies. I use the phrase “jazz tradition” to index copyright by author 1 2 Journal of Jazz Studies of a jazz artist intent on learning such lessons, I conclude by describing pianist Jason Moran’s parlay of this fascination with strict reenactment in his perfor- mance, “In My Mind: Monk at Town Hall, 1959.” While approached to do a precise restaging, Moran created instead a multi-media performance piece that revisits Thelonious Monk’s famous Town Hall Concert album and represents a different understanding of jazz, artistic influence, and history than that found in Blue. I find my argument obvious. So obvious that a reader could initially be skeptical that I am dimly missing the point of Blue: MOPDTK’s knowing irony about it all. But claiming “irony” can be a (perhaps unconscious) power grab (and I will highlight aspects of this project that are decidedly ironic, though not in any knowing way). My argument is necessary precisely because of the ways in which reviewers, scholars, and others uncritically embrace the epistemology that supports MOPDTK’s ostensibly shrewd engagement with jazz history and the jazz tradition. Blue consists of a track-by-track, solo-by-solo reenactment of Kind of Blue by the Miles Davis Sextet (Davis on trumpet, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley on alto sax, John Coltrane on tenor, Wynton Kelly on piano on “Freddie Freeloader,” Bill Evans on piano for the rest of the album, Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums). For the album, MOPDTK added pianist Ron Stabinsky to its regular line-up of Peter Evans on trumpet, Jon Irabagon on alto and tenor saxophones, Moppa Elliott on bass, and Kevin Shea on drums. Irabagon played both the Adderley and Coltrane roles by overdubbing some saxophone parts. Their intention was to mimic the performances as closely as possible in a type of “logical extreme” of a common pedagogical approach in jazz: copying jazz artists’ recorded performances.3 For example, the running time of each song is within seconds of the original. The group then released the recording in a simple glossy blue CD with lighter blue basic typescript on Elliott’s independent label, Hot Cup Records, named it Blue, and included as liner notes only this: Jorge Luis Borges’ 1939 short story, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.” The ensem- ble consists of highly respected contemporary jazz musicians who are regularly recognized in Downbeat critics’ polls and who play with highly creative jazz characteristics attributed to African American musical practice, such as versioning and “repeating with a signal difference” (See Gates 2014 [1988], Mackey 1998, Monson 1996). These traditions are not hermetically sealed off from each other. For example, many jazz artists, black and white, approach jazz from a more “Western” angle, including, in my view, Wynton Marsalis, Charles Tolliver, and Moppa Elliott. And, of course, Western literature is replete with parody and irony, as Gates recognizes in his discussion of African American literary practices (2014 [1988]). There are many within the Western tradition who critique the tendency toward the subject-self/object- other split, for example, Cervantes (See Echevarría 2001). 3 See, for example, Berliner 1994, chapter four. Tracy McMullen/Approaching the Jazz Past 3 improvisers like guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Mark Dresser, trumpeter Dave Douglas and others. Blue is not the first of MOPDTK’s albums to engage with jazz in an ironic and pastiche-y fashion. Their first two albums, Shamokin!!! (Killing 2007) and This is Our Moosic (Killing 2008), use cover art that mimic classic jazz albums by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and The Ornette Coleman Quartet.4 While the album design and title differ from the original, the liner notes ap- pear to be the most overt and intentional “difference” between the original album and the copy. Both the name—Blue—and the album design pare down the original, simplifying and abstracting as one might expect for a work described as a “thought experiment” (Elliott and Elliott 2014). The liner notes, however, introduce a layer of complexity that the ensemble uses to contextualize their recreation. Borges’ story takes the form of a narrator glorifying his recently deceased and unjustly little-renowned literary friend, Pierre Menard, for his most grand and audacious project: to reproduce, nay, to produce again the novel Don Quixote word for word, originally, as if it had come from Menard himself. This unrecognized genius initially thought he would try to “become” Miguel Cervan- tes; he would learn 16th century Spanish, “return to Catholicism, fight against the Moor or Turk, forget the history of Europe from 1602 to 1918,” and then from this would be able to create the Quixote. But Menard came to believe this would be too easy. Rather, he took on a much more interesting task: to produce the Quixote from his place as a fin de siècle Frenchman. As Menard told the narrator, “Every man should be capable of all ideas and I believe in the future he shall be.” The irony and pleasure of Borges’s story rests upon the recognition that such a project is absurd. We will never be able to spontaneously re-produce a work of art that involves the complexity of Don Quixote.5 MOPDTK could be making a 4 Comments made in their liner notes and, to a lesser extent, the group’s style, have attracted charges of racism against the conservatory-trained band that has no African American members (Neuringer 2015b). I also have a problem with many of the liner notes, which can sound arrogant in their decontextualized understanding of jazz history. I do want to acknowledge, however, that the music on their original albums offer the spontaneity and creativity of the best jazz today. I would argue that those albums are closer to an “exact” reenactment of Kind of Blue than Blue. 5 “Pierre Menard” is one of Borges’ most famous and critically acclaimed stories. Scholars cite it as an example of the “death of the author” and rise of the text decades before Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes and others made such claims in philosophy and semiotics (see, for example, Wood 2013, Williamson 2013). I suggest that Borges is also sending up a nascent breed of literary figures at the cusp of postmodernity and presaging (if not flatteringly) the rise of appropriation art. Marie-Laure Ryan writes that “Borges satirizes the efforts of a fictional early twentieth-century French author who devotes his life to an absurd project”—that of recreating Don Quixote word for word (Ryan 43). Emir Rodriguez Monegal and Alistair Reid read this 4 Journal of Jazz Studies valid, but timeworn, statement with this. They could be pointing out that to the extent that jazz is copied but not developed—for example, by players who merely become master mimics of old styles—we are missing the point of what art is: to really re-create something great is to create your own “something great.” This would be a minor statement about how jazz is learned today and a critique informed by the tradition of Western conceptual art, not African American- based jazz practice.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Swing Is Back ... in Boerne!! Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at Boerne Performing Arts 2019
    SWING IS BACK…IN BOERNE!! BOERNE, TX – March 24, 2019 – Boerne Performing Arts will close out their 2019 season swingin’ with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Since BBVD’s formation in the early nineties in Ventura, California, the band has toured virtually non-stop, performing an average of over 150 shows a year and sales of over 2 million albums to date. The band, cofounded by singer Scotty Morris and drummer Kurt Sodergren, was at the forefront of the swing revival of that time, blending a vibrant fusion of the classic American sounds of jazz, swing, and Dixieland, with the energy and spirit of contemporary culture. Ticket holders are coming from all four corners of Texas including Orange, Alpine, McAllen and Lubbock. Tickets for this event have been sold out since late February, but volunteers of Boerne Performing Arts are maintaining a “Wait List” in case any tickets are donated back to the organization. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy will arrive in Boerne to perform one evening show on Friday, April 5, at 7:30pm, at Champion Auditorium. Having performed at the Super Bowl, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the late night show circuits, for three US Presidents, and with our country’s most distinguished symphony orchestras, their musicianship is well known throughout the world. The GVTC Foundation, Frost Bank, LoneStar Properties and The City of Boerne are sponsoring this evening performance as well as a student matinee for 1,000 local students. Thanks to their generosity, fourth grade students from Boerne ISD will attend a one-hour show at no cost to the students as part of the Boerne Performing Arts FOR KIDS program.
    [Show full text]
  • Program Policy Brief 2019 Swingtime
    Program Policy # 029 Approved on 18 July 2019 ARTSOUND FM PROGRAM BRIEF Program Title Swingtime Category Specialist Music Program Schedule 4-5pm Wednesday Brief Description The program’s core element is swing jazz from the recognised US big bands recorded from 1932 to 1946. The focus is on the bands, band leaders, arrangers, composers, prominent musicians and vocalists who led or shaped the Swing Era. Concept and Content The target audience is listeners with a love of jazz music in the Swing idiom and interest in the people who were significant in the Swing Era. The core of the program is US popular music recorded from 1932 to 1946, but any music that "swings" or music associated with the core is appropriate. Subsidiary themes include: • the evolution of jazz through the 1920s and early ‘30s and the early work of musicians, arrangers, band leaders, and composers whose work led to and typified the Swing Era; • Australian bands of all periods with a significant emphasis on swing music; • subsidiary groups (bands within the bands)composed of key big band members, typically led by the big band leader; • big bands, dance bands, and musicians outside the core swing band and Swing Era, including UK swing and hotel dance bands, gypsy swing, Latin swing, western swing, swing revival, and military bands; • post-swing particularly the evolution of swing bands and musicians and singers in this idiom; and • Themed programs, or featured artist, composer, or groups as part of programs. The program addresses general and re-emerging interest in Swing music and the 2 Swing Era.
    [Show full text]
  • An Anthropological Perspective on Eastern and Western Folk Music
    An Anthropological Perspective on Eastern and Western Folk Music Item Type text; Electronic Thesis Authors Gurczak, Adam Stanley Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 28/09/2021 21:02:58 Item License http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/625002 AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON EASTERN AND WESTERN FOLK MUSIC By ADAM STANLEY GURCZAK ____________________ A Thesis Submitted to The Honors College In Partial Fulfillment of the Bachelors Degree With Honors in Music Performance THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA MAY 2017 Approved by: _________________________ Dr. Philip Alejo Department of Music EASTERN AND WESTERN FOLK MUSIC 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT 2 ARTIST’S STATEMENT 2 INTRODUCTION 3 ARGENTINE TANGO 4 PRE-TANGO HISTORY: RISE OF THE GAUCHOS 5 A BORDELLO UPBRINGING 5 THE ROOTS AND RHYTHMS OF TANGO 8 A WORLDWIDE SENSATION 9 THE FOREFATHERS OF TANGO 11 CHINESE TRADITIONAL MUSIC 13 THE PHILOSOPHY OF MUSIC 14 INSTRUMENTS OF THE EARTH 16 THE SOUND OF SCHOLARS 18 KOREAN GUGAK 21 GUGAK: A NATIONAL IDENTITY 22 SHAMANS, SINAWI, AND SANJO 24 NOBLE COURTS AND FARMYARDS 28 AMERICAN BLUEGRASS 30 GRASSROOTS, BLUEGRASS, AND BLUES 30 THE POLYNATION OF BLUEGRASS 33 CONCLUSION 36 BIBLIOGRAPHY 37 EASTERN AND WESTERN FOLK MUSIC 2 ABSTRACT The birth of folk music has always depended on the social, political, and cultural conditions of a particular country and its people.
    [Show full text]
  • Midiri Brothers Sextet with Jeff Barnhart February 17, 2019 • John Winthrop Middle School
    Midiri Brothers Sextet with Jeff Barnhart February 17, 2019 • John Winthrop Middle School This afternoon’s concert is co-sponsored by THE CLARK GROUP and TOWER LABORATORIES the 2019 stu ingersoll jazz concert Midiri Brothers Sextet A concert featuring the music of reed giants Benny Goodman, Jimmy Noone, Artie Shaw, Sidney Bechet, and more Paul Midiri, vibraphone Joseph Midiri, reeds Danny Tobias, jazz cornet, trumpet Pat Mercuri, guitar, banjo Jack Hegyi, bass Jim Lawlor, drums with special guest Jeff Barnhart, piano and vocals Selections will be announced from the stage 27 • Essex Winter Series Paul Midiri, co-leader, vibraphone Paul Midiri, along with his brother Joe, co-leads the 16 piece Midiri Brothers Orchestra as well as various small group ensembles. The Midiri Brothers Sextet performs jazz arrangements of standards, clasical music, as well as originals, many of them arranged by Paul. His many instrumental talents lend a special versatility to the Midiri Brothers unique sound. His specialty is jazz vibraphone with the sextet. Paul’s love of the vibes, and xylo- phone has led him to arrange numerous pieces for the sextet to give these instruments a proper setting. His extended virtuosity includes playing trombone and drums with the sextet where his brush work is often featured. Paul can be heard performing with the sextet across the country in many jazz festivals including the Sun Valley Jazz Jubilee, Pismo Jubilee By The Sea, the Capital city Jazz Fest as well as performer/clinician for the Sacramento Traditional Jazz Camp. Joseph Midiri, co-leader, reeds Joseph Midiri is an instrumentalist on the clarinet, alto, baritone and soprano saxophones.
    [Show full text]
  • Aesthetic Space: the Visible and the Invisible in Urban Agency
    Aesthetic Space: The Visible and the Invisible in Urban Agency THÈSE NO 6445 (2017) PRÉSENTÉE LE 16 MAI 2017 À LA FACULTÉ DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT NATUREL, ARCHITECTURAL ET CONSTRUIT LABORATOIRE CHÔROS PROGRAMME DOCTORAL EN ARCHITECTURE ET SCIENCES DE LA VILLE ÉCOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FÉDÉRALE DE LAUSANNE POUR L'OBTENTION DU GRADE DE DOCTEUR ÈS SCIENCES PAR Mirza TURSIĆ acceptée sur proposition du jury: Prof. B. Marchand, président du jury Prof. J. Lévy, directeur de thèse Prof. M. Jakob, rapporteur Prof. L. Matthey, rapporteur Dr L. Pattaroni, rapporteur Suisse 2017 Acknowledgements First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor Prof. Jacques Lévy for his continuous support, motivation and thoroughness. His incisiveness and intellectual acuity were fundamental throughout the research and writing phases of this thesis. I thank him for teaching me that one should not find their way, but invent it. Additional thanks go to Prof. Bruno Marchand, Prof. Michael Jakob, Prof. Laurent Matthey and Dr. Luca Pattaroni for their participation on my thesis committee. Their feedback and ideas remain an invaluable inspiration for my future scientific activities. My sincere thanks also go to Prof. Ognjenka Finci, Prof. Lemja Chabbouh Akšamija and Prof. Adnan Pašić for their crucial support at the very beginning of my academic odyssee. I recognize that this research would not have been possible without the Swiss government, from which I received a three-year excellence scholarship through the Federal Commission for Scholarships for Foreign Students (FCS). I am particularly grateful to Karin Delavy-Juillerat and Nathalie Miazza for their unfailing support from my very first day at the EPFL.
    [Show full text]
  • The Nineteenth Century Wasteland: the Void in the Works of Byron, Baudelaire, and Melville
    The Woman's College of The University of North Carolina LIBRARY COLLEGE COLLECTION cq no. 636 Gift of MARY GATES BRITTAIN BRITTAIN, MARY GATES. The Nineteenth Century Wasteland: The Void In The Works Of Byron, Baudelaire, And Melville. (1969) Directed by: Dr. Arthur W. Dixon. pp. I**1* The theme of the twentieth century "wasteland" began with T. S. Eliot's influential poem, and has reached its present culmination point in the literature of the Absurd. In a wasteland or an Absurd world, man is out of harmony with his universe, with his fellow man, and even with himself. There is Nothingness in the center of the universe, and Noth- ingness in the heart or center of man as well. "God Is Dead" in the wasteland and consequently it is an Iconoclastic world without religion, and without love; a world of aesthetic and spiritual aridity and ster- ility. Most writers, critics, and students of literature are familiar with the concept of the wasteland, but many do not realize that this is not a twentieth century thematic phenomenon. The contemporary wasteland has its parallel in the early and middle nineteenth century with the Romantics; with such writers as Byron, Baudelaire, and Melville. The disillusionment of western man at the end of World War I was similar in many respects to that experienced by the Romantics at the end of the French Revolution. Furthermore, the break-up of the old order, and the disappearance of iod from the cosmos in the closing years of the eighteenth century, along with the shattering of many illusions by the discoveries of science, the loss of both religious and secular values, and the break-down in the political order in the early nineteenth century, left man alienated, isolated, homeless, and friend- less.
    [Show full text]
  • Downbeat.Com December 2014 U.K. £3.50
    £3.50 £3.50 . U.K DECEMBER 2014 DOWNBEAT.COM D O W N B E AT 79TH ANNUAL READERS POLL WINNERS | MIGUEL ZENÓN | CHICK COREA | PAT METHENY | DIANA KRALL DECEMBER 2014 DECEMBER 2014 VOLUME 81 / NUMBER 12 President Kevin Maher Publisher Frank Alkyer Editor Bobby Reed Associate Editor Davis Inman Contributing Editor Ed Enright Art Director LoriAnne Nelson Contributing Designer Žaneta Čuntová Bookkeeper Margaret Stevens Circulation Manager Sue Mahal Circulation Associate Kevin R. Maher Circulation Assistant Evelyn Oakes ADVERTISING SALES Record Companies & Schools Jennifer Ruban-Gentile 630-941-2030 [email protected] Musical Instruments & East Coast Schools Ritche Deraney 201-445-6260 [email protected] Advertising Sales Associate Pete Fenech 630-941-2030 [email protected] OFFICES 102 N. Haven Road, Elmhurst, IL 60126–2970 630-941-2030 / Fax: 630-941-3210 http://downbeat.com [email protected] CUSTOMER SERVICE 877-904-5299 / [email protected] CONTRIBUTORS Senior Contributors: Michael Bourne, Aaron Cohen, Howard Mandel, John McDonough Atlanta: Jon Ross; Austin: Kevin Whitehead; Boston: Fred Bouchard, Frank- John Hadley; Chicago: John Corbett, Alain Drouot, Michael Jackson, Peter Margasak, Bill Meyer, Mitch Myers, Paul Natkin, Howard Reich; Denver: Norman Provizer; Indiana: Mark Sheldon; Iowa: Will Smith; Los Angeles: Earl Gibson, Todd Jenkins, Kirk Silsbee, Chris Walker, Joe Woodard; Michigan: John Ephland; Minneapolis: Robin James; Nashville: Bob Doerschuk; New Orleans: Erika Goldring, David Kunian, Jennifer Odell; New York: Alan Bergman,
    [Show full text]
  • October 2020 2020 EARSHOT JAZZ DIGITAL FESTIVAL Feeling the Spirit
    Since 1984, Earshot Jazz has been Seattle’s major ambassador of jazz – presenting jazz masters and important new artists, supporting the local scene, and educating young and old about the joys of jazz – all thanks to contributions from folks like you. Make a donation TODAY www.earshot.org/donate 206-547-6763 All photos by Daniel Sheehan taken at the 2018 Earshot Jazz Festival. Top: Brian Blade, Kate Olson, Jovino Santos Neto, Logan Richardson, Jazzmeia Horn, Bill Frisell, Ryan J. Lee, Maria Schneider. Middle: Regina Carter, Jasnam Daya Singh, Tia Fuller, Wayne Horvitz, Burniss Travis, Roosevelt High School Jazz Band, Myra Melford, Joel Ross. Bottom Row: Dawn Clement, Johnaye Kendrick, Jay Thomas, Jen Shyu, Keyon Harrold, Caroline Davis, Donovan Kranzler-Lewis, Mark Turner. 2 • EARSHOT JAZZ • October 2020 2020 EARSHOT JAZZ DIGITAL FESTIVAL Feeling the Spirit Welcome to the 2020 edition of the time, president Earshot Jazz Festival. We’re proud to Barack Obama celebrate Seattle’s place in the dy- referred to jazz namic world of jazz with a festival as “fearless and that reflects both the circumstances true” and an and the spirit of these extraordinary “honest reflec- times. tion of who Building this year’s program on we are in this the tangible pillars of Listen, Learn, time.” All of and Improvise; we’ve also focused the artists on the artistic expression on the essen- this year’s festi- tial fourth corner of jazz’s founda- val bring a great tion: Feel. Beneath the technical depth of skill brilliance that we’ve come to expect and expressive in today’s artists, the essence of the spirit to the music is in the personal expression stage, though of the artist and its impact on the few have so rig- listener.
    [Show full text]
  • From King Records Month 2018
    King Records Month 2018 = Unedited Tweets from Zero to 180 Aug. 3, 2018 Zero to 180 is honored to be part of this year's celebration of 75 Years of King Records in Cincinnati and will once again be tweeting fun facts and little known stories about King Records throughout King Records Month in September. Zero to 180 would like to kick off things early with a tribute to King session drummer Philip Paul (who you've heard on Freddy King's "Hideaway") that is PACKED with streaming audio links, images of 45s & LPs from around the world, auction prices, Billboard chart listings and tons of cool history culled from all the important music historians who have written about King Records: “Philip Paul: The Pulse of King” https://www.zeroto180.org/?p=32149 Aug. 22, 2018 King Records Month is just around the corner - get ready! Zero to 180 will be posting a new King history piece every 3 days during September as well as October. There will also be tweeting lots of cool King trivia on behalf of Xavier University's 'King Studios' historic preservation collaborative - a music history explosion that continues with this baseball-themed celebration of a novelty hit that dominated the year 1951: LINK to “Chew Tobacco Rag” Done R&B (by Lucky Millinder Orchestra) https://www.zeroto180.org/?p=27158 Aug. 24, 2018 King Records helped pioneer the practice of producing R&B versions of country hits and vice versa - "Chew Tobacco Rag" (1951) and "Why Don't You Haul Off and Love Me" (1949) being two examples of such 'crossover' marketing.
    [Show full text]
  • Baltimore: “Music City” of the Future?
    December 2015 Baltimore: “Music City” of the Future? . 1 BCJS at BMA: Don Braden Quintet featuring Vanessa Rubin . 4 BALTIMORE JAZZ ALLIANCE Member Notes, Discounts and Merchandise . 6 Dave Douglas at An die Musik . 7 An Interview with Nico Sarbanes . 8 Jazz Jam Sessions . 10 Ad Rates and Member Sign-up Form . 11 VOLUME XII ISSUE XI THE BJA NEWSLETTER WWW.BALTIMOREJAZZ.COM Baltimore: “Music City” of the Future? By Ken Avis On October 25th the Music Cities Conference in Washington, DC brought together 200 musicians, presenters, and city ad - ministrators from around the world to share experiences con - cerning the value of active music communities and ways to make them thrive. Something is happening out there. In re - cent years, at the city and at national levels, data are being collected, action plans are being implemented, and “live music offices” are being staffed. The evidence is conclusive. Under the right conditions a vibrant music scene positively affects community and economic development. Link it to tourism and it can really bring in the dollars and jobs. Austin, Nashville, New Orleans, and Berlin are clearly “music cities” where festivals, clubs and the supporting in - dustries provide jobs and attract tourist dollars. Austin has been America’s fastest-growing city for the last nine years. Its “cool music city” factor has been key to its success in attract - ing creative talent for the expanding high tech and creative What about Baltimore? Could Baltimore harness its jazz industries. At the other end of the spectrum, Johannesburg, legacy and active arts scene to ramp up quality of life Bogota, and at the national level, Venezuela are actively pur - and attract talent and jobs to revitalize the city ? suing music education and performance programs to address problems of crime and poverty and to develop healthier com - searchable by date, location, and genre, are front and center.
    [Show full text]
  • Liebman Expansions
    MAY 2016—ISSUE 169 YOUR FREE GUIDE TO THE NYC JAZZ SCENE NYCJAZZRECORD.COM DAVE LIEBMAN EXPANSIONS CHICO NIK HOD LARS FREEMAN BÄRTSCH O’BRIEN GULLIN Managing Editor: Laurence Donohue-Greene Editorial Director & Production Manager: Andrey Henkin To Contact: The New York City Jazz Record 66 Mt. Airy Road East MAY 2016—ISSUE 169 Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520 United States Phone/Fax: 212-568-9628 New York@Night 4 Laurence Donohue-Greene: Interview : Chico Freeman 6 by terrell holmes [email protected] Andrey Henkin: [email protected] Artist Feature : Nik Bärtsch 7 by andrey henkin General Inquiries: [email protected] On The Cover : Dave Liebman 8 by ken dryden Advertising: [email protected] Encore : Hod O’Brien by thomas conrad Editorial: 10 [email protected] Calendar: Lest We Forget : Lars Gullin 10 by clifford allen [email protected] VOXNews: LAbel Spotlight : Rudi Records by ken waxman [email protected] 11 Letters to the Editor: [email protected] VOXNEWS 11 by suzanne lorge US Subscription rates: 12 issues, $40 Canada Subscription rates: 12 issues, $45 In Memoriam 12 by andrey henkin International Subscription rates: 12 issues, $50 For subscription assistance, send check, cash or money order to the address above CD Reviews or email [email protected] 14 Staff Writers Miscellany David R. Adler, Clifford Allen, 37 Duck Baker, Fred Bouchard, Stuart Broomer, Thomas Conrad, Ken Dryden, Donald Elfman, Event Calendar 38 Philip Freeman, Kurt Gottschalk, Tom Greenland, Anders Griffen, Alex Henderson, Marcia Hillman, Terrell Holmes, Robert Iannapollo, Suzanne Lorge, Marc Medwin, Ken Micallef, Russ Musto, John Pietaro, Joel Roberts, John Sharpe, Elliott Simon, Andrew Vélez, Ken Waxman Tracing the history of jazz is putting pins in a map of the world.
    [Show full text]
  • Glenn Siegel, Ken Irwin, (413) 545-2876
    Contact: Glenn Siegel, Ken Irwin, (413) 545-2876 www.fineartscenter.com/magictriangle THE 2011 MAGIC TRIANGLE JAZZ SERIES PRESENTS: Mostly Other People Do the Killing The Magic Triangle Jazz Series, produced by WMUA, 91.1FM and the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, concludes its 22nd season on Wednesday, April 20, at Bezanson Recital Hall with an 8:00pm performance by Mostly Other People Do the Killing. Deconstructing jazz standards and original compositions, weaving in and out of styles erratically and often humorously, Mostly Other People Do the Killing (MOPDtK) is led by bassist and composer Moppa Elliot and features Peter Evans, trumpet, Jon Iragabon, saxophone and Kevin Shea, drums. “Bolstered by a youthful visceral intensity,” writes All About Jazz, “the mercurial quartet has a historically aware yet stylistically irreverent take on the jazz tradition." Mostly Other People Do the Killing formed in the fall of 2003 in New York City. Moppa Elliott met Peter Evans in 1998 at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where both studied. Upon relocating to New York, Elliott met Jon Irabagon and Kevin Shea. Mostly Other People Do the Killing recorded its first eponymous album during the summer of 2004 and released it on Elliott's Hot Cup label. "There’s a bustling, ostentatious impiety in the music of Mostly Other People Do the Killing,” writes The New York Times. “It’s a jazz quartet with a diligent grasp of history but an anarchic take on convention.” Their most recent release, Forty Fort (Hot Cup), is their fourth. By 2009, they had been voted the winners of the DownBeat Critics' Poll in the Rising Star Ensemble category, and Evans, Irabagon, and Elliott had been mentioned in their respective categories Jon Irabagon won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone competition in 2008, while Peter Evans released his second solo trumpet album on Evan Parker's psi label.
    [Show full text]